Effects of Science, Technology, and Innovation Official Development Assistance on Innovative Capacity in Developing Countries

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors

Happy new year.

Avoid using abbreviations in the paper title

The abstract needs strengthening. How many data points were analysed, which countries, what period etc is not captured? What are the hypotheses that were not supported, and how does that add new knowledge?

Introduction

The theoretical underpinning for this research needs strengthening in this section.

Literature Review

2.1 STI ODA and Innovative Capacity - several claims are made without citations. Need to revise Lit Review section to appropriately include sources.

Absorptive capacity discussion and hypothesis needs strengthening.

Move fig 3 from Research methods to Lit Review section

Research methods

There is a good definition of variables and data collection. However, the methodological discussion is completely missing. The use and analysis of panel data needs to be explained.

Results

This section is well written and would help to add a table to show if the hypotheses were supported or not with empirical data.

The discussion and conclusion sections should be separated.

The discussion section should be rewritten to clearly show practitioner and theoretical implications (two sub-sections). 

H1 was not supported and this is a huge finding, but no real effort is made to explain the results (with citations). 

Conclusion

this section should summarise key findings, new knowledge, limitations of this study, and future research opportunities. 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The article is interesting but needs minor improvements. I would suggest that the authors modify the literature review to make it more consistent with the scope of the study. But most of all, the article lacks a discussion between the results obtained and the current state of knowledge in this area. 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper is interesting and relevant. However, some aspects deserve to be improved.

The authors should consider more references in the literature review to support Hypothesis 1.

In Table 2, the names of variables are not the same as the models on page 6.

A critical aspect regarding the methodology should be attended:

-        When we study moderations, the variables under moderation must be centered. The such transformation aims at reducing the correlation between the two variables (Aiken and West, 1991; Moon, 2018).

-        Moreover, the authors should transform with logarithms for the variables with higher dispersion (Patents, Pub, Research, GDP).

-        Thus, authors must do new estimations considering these transformations.

Finally, in conclusion, the authors should explain the study's contributions.

Aiken, L.S. and West, S.G. (1991),Multiple Regression: Testing and Interpreting Interactions, SagePublications Ltd, New York, NY

Moon, K.-K. (2018), “How does a diversity climate shape the relationship between demographic diversityand organizational social capital in the U.S. federal government?”,Public Management Review,Vol.20No. 8, pp. 1246-1264

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors

Thank you for the detailed cover note and track changes to the paper. You have taken on board the comments and made significant changes.

Best of luck

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors consider my considerations.